


Night Terrors

by orphan_account



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s almost willing to believe that him and her, in bed, behind closed doors with the fire flickering in their hands; all of it that a dream she doesn’t want to wake up from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Terrors

She wasn’t sure what came to her in these dreams and she wasn’t sure of anything after they happened. She would cry out and bolt up from her bed, tangled in sheets and covered in sweat and she wouldn’t feel anything, no bending, no energy; nothing. She would rub the sleep from her eyes and try to bend something, anything, to feel everything that made her what she was. With one of her hands rubbing out the sleep in her eyes and the other trying to make something spark from the darkness of her bedroom, she holds her breath. A snap and nothing. She would punch the air and the earth would remain still where her feet lay on the cold, concrete pavement and she would wave her hands to gather water from the air but nothing.

She would hyperventilate and try again and again as the tears from distress run down her cheeks. She would bite her lip as she gets out of bed, her shaky hands forcing the dark hair from her sweaty face and she would feel the cold wind as it chills where her shirt was damp with perspiration. The guards of the White Lotus know to keep away from her when she is like this, fresh and still in the grip of an unexplainable nightmare, obscured, delirious. Her bare feet make soft padded noises as she stalks to Tenzin and Pema’s quarters as if she were a child again, with nightmares of Naga running away or being attacked by a dinogator.

She would see him sitting at his small tea table as she enters. Him and Pema already aware of her episodes and she sits across him, searching with her terrified eyes for something, anything, an answer perhaps or a reprieve of this nightmare. He would ask that she breathe deeply and they would meditate, but his eyes betray fear, almost the same amount she has because he doesn’t know – yet.

She still hasn’t the hang of meditating so instead she fidgets, her hands shaking with non-existent energy and she wishes just to crawl into bed with them, hoping that they would shield her from the monsters of the night the way her parents did years and years ago. She is afraid to voice this out and fatigue overcomes her, falling asleep at Tenzin’s side and waking up on their sofa with a blanket over her in the morning. Her bending would return and everything would be as though nothing happened. She would resume training with the Ferrets and she would resume training with Tenzin, sometimes at the same time.

Now, she has nothing. Tenzin and Pema and the kids are nowhere to be found and she still hasn’t found the time to grieve, to search because she – she is not sure. The dreams still suffocate her and tear at her throat and she wants release from them, so she shakily feels the walls of the gym attic, looking for a window. She sets her head against the cold wall and pounds her fists against it, that feeling of naught wrapping itself all over her body yet again and quiet sobs escape from her throat.

She slides down and lands on the wooden floor in a crumpled heap, hoping for Tenzin’s wisdom, for Pema’s maternal guidance, for her parents and their familiar voices once more. She screams at Avatar Aang in her mind, hoping he’d hear,  _help me, please, help me,_ but everything around her is maddeningly silent. Save for movement outside her door, perhaps Bolin going for a midnight piss.

She hears a knock but she refuses to move, she is unable to, and her tears finally find themselves on the old wooden floor. Another knock and she makes a strangled sort of noise and the door opens, Mako glancing around the room with sleep-coated eyes. He freezes at the sight of her crumpled figure on the floor and slides to her side, his hands warm and gentle as they carry her back to bed and his eyes now wide awake and alert, as they would be in the ring during a match.

She is numb, as if she had been attacked by the Lieutenant in the dream. He asks her softly, lightly akin to a butterfly’s wings flapping while his fingers trace the hair from her face. ‘What’s happened?’

When she finally gets feeling back in her body, her arms at least, she shows him. Her hand attempts to snap fire from her fingers and instead they flail helplessly, limply like a fish out of water but he knows and he takes her hand and brings it down in his. He murmurs a song, one she knows as the same one her mother sings to her before she goes to bed back in the South Pole and she closes her eyes, waiting for the chi to flow back into place, her mind almost light-headed, this possibly being her closest attempt at meditation.

She makes a noise of protest when his fingers leave hers and his warmth dancing on her forehead disappears but it is short-lived and he crawls under the blankets with her, and his warm hand finds its way back inside hers. They breathe in the silence, his warmth flowing to where his arms touch hers and she sighs, finally feeling everything once more.  His hand leaves the blanket and her raises it to make a small ball of fire, the light dances through his fingers and bounces off the cold concrete walls.

She brings her hand up next to his, and that feeling of naught disappears, she captures part of the fire shakily in hers and she laughs softly at the feeling of it dancing on her fingertips, as if she’s firebent for the first time. The room’s brighter now; the small spheres of flame in their hands beating like hearts but even with their fingers  _this_  close together, she feels his other hand wrap around hers under the blanket. She smiles.

She’s almost willing to believe that him and her, in bed, behind closed doors with the fire flickering in their hands; all of it that a dream she doesn’t want to wake up from. She sighs in defeat when she realises that it’s all wishful thinking.  _Tenzin and his family, Amon and the Equalists, losing her powers,_ all a nightmare brought to life.

She falls asleep in his arms, a dreamless slumber, and she wakes the next morning refusing to leave his embrace, burying her face in his shirt instead. He wakes up but he doesn’t let go even as sunlight streamed from the crack under the doorway, even as heavy thumps of Bolin’s feet travel down the hallway, asking for food while walking around half-asleep.


End file.
